150 years ago on January 26, 1865, Anson Croman was promoted to corporal.

He served in Company F, 20th Michigan Infantry Regiment, Second Brigade, First Division, IX Corps, Army of the Potomac. At that time the 20th Michigan was part of the Union siege of Petersburg near Battery Nine just south of the the Appomattox River on the northeast edge of the city.

This year I have come to realize that after Poland and Italy from where my ancestors emigrated, France is the country with whom my family has the longest and closest relationship.

Our family’s relationship with France extends over almost 100 years.

1918: Philip Lovetere serves in France

Philip Lovetere in France.

98 years ago in 1918, my maternal grandfather Philip Lovetere was drafted into the U.S. Army and assigned to the 64th Infantry Regiment, 14th Infantry Brigade, 7th Infantry Division.

On September 23, 1918, Philip and the 7th Infantry Division landed at Brest, France.

By the end of September until the end of the war on November 11, he was deployed to the front where he served in the Marbache and Puvenelle Sectors in Lorraine, north of Nancy on the west bank of the Moselle River.

1920: Angela Giordano travels from Sicily to New York City by way of Marseilles and Cherbourg

Angela Giordano’s passport photo.

96 years ago in 1920, my maternal grandmother Angela Giordano traveled by train from her home in Sicily to Cherbourg by way of Marseilles.

Among her memories of a young single woman traveling alone was her fright of the Arabs of Marseilles.

On December 31, 1920 in Cherbourg she boarded the U.S.S. Finland for the United States.

She took a train from New York City to Chicago where she met and married Philip Lovetere.

1944 – 1945: Felix A. Cizewski serves in France

Felix A. Cizewski in training in 1943 just prior to his deployment to France.

In 1942, my late father Felix A. Cizewski was drafted and assigned to Company C, 3110th Signal Service Battalion, Army Service Forces.

70 years ago on July 25, 1944, he landed at Utah Beach and was initially stationed at Tamerville, France. He also served in Valognes and Cherbourg before the battalion was sent to Paris. There he suffered frostbite.

In January, 1945 after recovering from frostbite he suffered in Paris, he was transferred to the 45th Signal Company, 45th Infantry Division in Petersbach, France approximately 130 kilometers (81 miles) east of where he future father-in-law Philip Lovetere served 27 years earlier

From January until March, 1945, Felix served in Baccarat, Lunneville, Castle Stanislaus, and Sarreguemines, France.

In May 2014, Felix’s son and Philip and Angela’s grandson Leonard and his wife Cheryl A. Robinson traveled to Tamerville for the dedication of a memorial to those who liberted anad served in Tamerville, including the 3110th Signal Service Battalion.

Plaque honoring the 3110th and other units.

Click on the image for a large PDF of the plaque.

2014: Genetic Cousins Leonard and Daniel Meet

Genetic cousins Leonard Cizewski and Daniel Ewenczyk.

Pnoto by Cheryl A. Robinson

In June, Leonard and Cheryl traveled to Paris where we met Leonard’s genetic cousin Daniel Ewenczyk.

From their DNA work, Leonard and Daniel discovered within the last 350 years in Eastern Europe their Slavic and Jewish families met and they share a common paternal ancestor.

Passing as French in the United States.

Anna Marie (Lovetere) Cizewski shared two stories of our maternal family passing as French to avoid prejudice and housing and job discrimination against Sicilian immigrant families.

In the 1920s Philip and Angela wished to move out of the crime and poverty of Chicago’s Italian ghetto.

In a neighbor founded by French-Canadians, they found an Lithuanian immigrant family who would rent to them. The owners and my grandparents agreed that they would tell the neighbors they were of French ancestry.

During WWII, Italian-Americans were being denied jobs.

Again, my mother said that when asked she would say she was of French ancestry.

Could my family’s relationship with France be even older?

My Sicilian family’s oral history claims French ancestry.

History and DNA confirm a close relationship between Sicily and France, especially Normandy.

Normans first arrived in Sicily about the year 999 and ruled it until 1139.

DNA studies of Sicilians suggest that at least 7% to 10% of our DNA could originate in northwest Europe such as Normandy.

Felix said that the Army doctors told him that they might need to amputate part of all of his hands and feet.

However, night after night, after the American doctors had gone, a captured German doctor working in the American hospital massaged Felix’s hands and feet with a special salve.

Eventually Felix healed enough to avoid amputations and return to be reassigned to the 45th Signal Company.

A captured American soldier with “frozen feet” reported that from German medical supplies, the German guard gave him “something that looked like axle grease…which we rubbed on our feet.” (From Alex Kershaw in The Longest Winter, Da Capo Press, 2004, page 168.) Could this be the special salve Felix described that the German POW doctor used?

Medic treating GI with trench foot and cold injuries to his hands and face. This illustrates what Felix might have suffered and the treatment with a salve.

Corporal Ray Davidson of Company A reports that the 3110th worked from a building near the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

They were first housed in a hotel near the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Their hotel had electricity only a few minutes per day and no hot water.

June, 2014:

Seventy years later. Felix’s son Leonard on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées near where Felix served.

Since the exact building that the 3110th used may are not known, I decided that the best I could do was to stand under a sign on the Avenue.

Photo by Cheryl A. Robinson

Later the 3110th moved to a school near a race track. Hotels near the Avenue des Champs-Élysées were needed for combat troops on leave.

Corporal Davidson reported that the public transportation system was not working and bicycles were the main means of transportation.

Goods were scarce.

Sidewalks cafes were open but not night clubs or movies theatres. A couple of theatres were showing news reels.

He reports that after they first arrived they had to wait in long lines for their meals and the meals were initially “skimpy”. Their meals improved when the battalion was assigned a restaurant with French cooks.

The WWII Letters of Ray Davidson were compiled by his nephew Charles N. Davidson. Charles privately published them for his family and families of the 3110th.

Another post in an ongoing series about our trip to France for the the memorial in Tamerville, part of the observance of the 70th anniversary of the Liberation of France.

My late father Felix A. Cizewski served in Company C, 3110th Signal Service Battalion in Tamerville, Cherbourg, Paris providing communications and logistical support for the liberation of Normandy in 1944.

Another post in an ongoing series about our trip to France for the the memorial in Tamerville, part of the observance of the 70th anniversary of the Liberation of France.

My late father Felix A. Cizewski served in Company C, 3110th Signal Service Battalion in Tamerville and Cherbourg providing communications and logistical support for the liberation of Normandy in 1944.

70 years ago on July 25, 1944 Company C, 3110th Signal Service Battalion landed on Utah Beach. Among them was Private Felix A. Cizewski, my late father.

The monument to the landing of the 2nd French Armored Division six days later on August 1, 1944 marks the spot where Company C landed.

June 1, 2014: Leonard H Cizewski at the northern end of Utah Beach at the monument where the 2nd French Armor Division landed on August 1, 1944. My late father in Company C, 3110th Signal Service Battalion, landed near this site six days earlier on July 25.
Photo by Cheryl A. Robinson (Felix’s daughter-in-law and Leonard’s wife)

From Utah Beach Company C proceed to Transit Area B at Focarville then to Tamerville.

A map (below) at Le Musée d’Utah Beach detailed how Utah Beach was used for troop deployment such as Company C.

Plan of Activities at Utah Beach, June 6 to November 4, 1944.

Orange circle: Transit Area B in Focarville from where Co. C proceeded to Tamerville.